NEW Taxi Laws Are Coming To NSW And It's Good News For US!

As of today, there are some new rules coming into play in NSW, all to do with Taxis and Ubers.

From today, November 1, 2017 - Uber drivers in NSW are required by law to display special stickers on their vehicles.

"As part of ongoing regulatory reforms, the New South Wales Government will require rideshare drivers to display stickers on vehicles from 1st November. We’re working closely with Transport for NSW and drivers to implement the new requirements," said the Uber spokesperson to AltMedia.

If you’re an Uber driver, you should have received your sticker by now, be sure to contact administration if there are any issues.

Of course, the issue for Uber is that the visible decal may encourage people to approach drivers about cash jobs, even though it is illegal to do so.

In other transport news, Taxi passengers crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel northbound will no longer have to pay the cost of a return toll of up to $4 after new laws covering the taxi and ride-sharing industries come into effect today.

Under these new laws, companies like Cabcharge will now be able to offer discounts on rides and set their own pricing, making them competitive against Uber - and that’s good news for us.

In fact, we’ll be able to request the price of the trip beforehand and choose to accept or deny. Flat fare trips should also become more prevalent under these changes. "I expect they will test things over time,"NSW Point to Point Transport Commissioner Barbara Wise said.

"They might offer a cheap Tuesday.

"It is designed to give the taxi industry the ability to compete in the booking market. They won't have to use the meter for booked fares if they don't want to,” she said.

In other reports, allegedly both NSW Taxi Council and Uber are looking at going ‘near-driverless’ in the future, with tests in Australia starting by 2020.

WOW.

"With the recent announcements by Ford, Volvo and the Singapore Government, autonomous taxis are not far away. It is likely that we will see trials of autonomous taxis in NSW and Australia before the end of the decade," NSW Taxi Council CEO Roy Wakelin-King said.